Abstract

Early Hearing Detection and Intervention - Pediatric Audiology Links to Services (EHDI-PALS) is a web-based national directory of pediatric audiology facilities in the United States, created by an expert committee and launched in October 2012. In this study, data from 1,232 audiology facilities were analyzed to identify the number of registered facilities, types of diagnostic hearing tests offered, and the number of children under 5 years of age who were diagnosed with hearing loss. Some states had almost 15 times as many registered facilities as other states, suggesting that access to quality diagnostic hearing testing for infants and young children is still a major public health problem in many states. Almost all registered facilities (approximately 90%) have diagnostic test equipment to assess and diagnose children over 7 months of age. However, less than 70% of facilities had appropriate Auditory Brainstem Response (ABR) equipment needed for children 6 months of age or younger. The data suggest that steps need to be taken to increase the number of registered pediatric audiology facilities in each state to efficiently deal with the large number of infants and young children being referred from newborn hearing screening programs.